Tender Gravity - by Marybeth Holleman (Paperback)

About the Book

tender gravity, Marybeth Holleman's debut poetry collection, charts a course of love, loss, and solace in her time spent rooted in the more-than-human world. With praise poems echoing Mary Oliver, and with expansive inclusivity reminiscent of Walt Whitman, Holleman draws us so close into her wild world that we, too, feel "that joy-sap rising."

Book Synopsis

tender gravity, Marybeth Holleman's debut poetry collection, charts a course of love, loss, and solace in her time spent rooted in the more-than-human world. With praise poems echoing Mary Oliver, and with expansive inclusivity reminiscent of Walt Whitman, Holleman draws us so close into her wild world that we, too, feel "that joy-sap rising."

Review Quotes

"The poems range from kayak-level considerations of ocean life to close looks at a wetland sundew to views of the moon, comets, and the cosmos. They are, however, more than observations and celebrations of nature; they interrogate questions of life and death, responsibility to human and non-human beings, and the contradictions we all live with. "-Nancy Lord, Anchorage Daily News

"Again and again Holleman interrogates humanity's preoccupation with itself, panning out to remind us that the larger world does not bother itself over these momentary matters. However, there is also a delicate emotional undercurrent running through tender gravity--Holleman is not simply reminding us about the death of glaciers and the warming of the planet. Gradually the poet permits a small glimpse into a personal tragedy--the loss of her brother, a victim of gun violence--and it becomes clear that she is taking solace in this larger sense of cosmic indifference." -- Erica Reid, The Colorado Review